Impact of Data Analytics in Major League Baseball
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Issue Date
2025-04-07
Authors
Samayoa, Alejandro
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First Reader
Nonnenmacher, Tomas W.
Additional Readers
Bianco, Timothy P.
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Abstract
The introduction of data analytics (Sabermetrics) and the concept of Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game transformed baseball by providing new insights into player performance data, which impacted team decision making and management. Data analytics transformed more than just baseball. It is widely used in all sports today as well as businesses to help make strategic decisions and provide advantages so they can thrive. This research examines whether teams, particularly those in smaller markets with lower budgets, that use sabermetrics continue to maintain a competitive advantage, allowing them to compete with larger market teams. It also explores whether teams that adopt Sabermetrics achieve better on field performance relative to their payroll. My findings support that Sabermetrics initially provided early adopters with a competitive advantage, but that advantage could not be sustained over time. Additionally, I found that certain Sabermetric statistics were more strongly correlated with team success than traditional statistics. Analytics have become essential across all sports, but they are especially significant in baseball. This research is important because it can shed light on the long-term efficiencies of data analytics and its impact on decision making and management within the sports and businesses industries.
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Major
Business
Department
Business and Economics
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Honors
Business and Economics, 2025